I’m beginning my account of the children of John Schofield Londors and Sarah Ann Brown (my great great grandparents) with their eldest daughter, Sarah Ann.

Sarah Ann Londors’ birth was registered in the Romford district in the third quarter of 1852 and later census records state that she was born in Barking. However, as mentioned in an earlier post, Sarah was christened on 5 September 1852 at the church of St. Mary, Bromley St. Leonard. The record states that Sarah was born on 10 July and that the family’s abode was Bromley. As I’ve noted in previous posts, the reasons for the Londors family’s various forays into the old East End remain obscure, for now.

At the time of the 1861 census Sarah, aged 8, was living with her parents and her younger sisters, Alma and Alice, at Hattons Corner in Barking. However, she was absent from home ten years later, when the 1871 census was taken. She would have been 18. To date, I’ve been unable to find any trace of Sarah elsewhere at this time, but it’s likely that she was working away from her home area.

Bishopsgate Street

Sarah was married two years later, on Christmas Day, 1873 at St. Botolph’s Bishopsgate, to whitesmith William Orgar. She was 21, he was 29, and they both gave their address as 25 Acorn Street, which was off Bishopsgate Street.

This was not far from the area where William Orgar grew up. He was born on 27 July 1844 in St. Luke’s, Middlesex, but wasn’t christened until 18 June 1847, alongside his younger sister Emma Amelia, at the church of St. John the Baptist in Hoxton. At the time, his parents, tobacco pipe-maker John Orgar and his wife Sarah, were living in Union Street – not far from Acorn Street.

Arms of the guild of tobacco pipe makers

Interestingly, John Orgar had himself been born in Barking, in 1818, and he was married in 1840 in the Romford area. His wife was born Sarah Hippisley Shean in Southwark in 1819: she was the daughter of Samuel and Mary Ann Shean. In an earlier post, I noted that in 1841 the Barking household of William and Sarah Schofield (whom I believe to have been the parents of my 3 x great grandmother Mary Ann, wife of John Londors) included one Sarah Orgar, aged 13. Following correspondence with Andy Phillips, who is researching his Orgar ancestors, I’ve come to the conclusion that this was John Orgar’s younger sister, and that they were both the children of another John Orgar (also a tobacco pipe maker).

If this is the case, then it means that Sarah Londors did not have to leave Barking to meet her future husband William. The two families had probably known each other for some years, and at some point may have been neighbours in Barking. Moreover, the movement of the Orgar family between Barking and east London may eventually provide a clue to the mystery of the Londors’ family’s connection to the latter area.

The Orgars certainly moved around. I’ve been unable to find John and Sarah in the 1841 census, but in 1851 they were in Meeting House Court in Shoreditch, with their children William, Henry, Emma and Eliza, who had been born variously in St. Luke’s, Shoreditch and Clerkenwell.

I haven’t located William Orgar or his family in the 1861 census. However, in 1871, when he was 27, William was living at 100 Crawford Street in Marylebone, not far from Upper Dorset Street where he and Sarah would live after their marriage. This was the home of ironmonger Samuel Shean, who I assume was a relative (brother?) of William’s mother Sarah. Samuel is said to have employed six men, of whom I assume William, who is described as an ironmonger’s porter, was one. Also at the same address was 16 year old ironmonger’s apprentice Thomas Beale, who would marry Sarah Londors’ sister Alice nine years later. I assume Thomas met Alice through William.

Victorian ironmonger's shop

At the time of the 1881 census, eight years after their marriage, William and Sarah Ann Orgar were living at 8 Upper Dorset Street with their two-year-old son, Ernest Albert. His older brother, William John, 6, was staying with his grandparents, John and Sarah Londors, in Barking. At this stage, William senior’s occupation is described as ‘carpenter’. Also with the Orgars in Dorset Street was Sarah’s younger sister Edith, aged 18.

The census official had the usual trouble with the spelling of Londors, rendering Edith’s surname as ‘Launders’. Curiously, the name directly below looks exactly the same, though both have been transcribed by Ancestry as ‘Saunders’. This is 31-year-old florist Samuel Launders or Saunders, who is also resident at No. 8, but who heads a separate household, consisting of himself, his wife Sarah, and daughters Rosa and Lilian, all of them born in Marylebone. Further investigation will be needed to determine whether there is any connection with the Londors family, or whether the similarity of surname, and proximity in the same house, caused the clerk to spell them identically.

According to official records, William John Orgar was born in Barkingside in 1875, suggesting that his parents may have moved back to Sarah’s home area before setting up home in west London. However, by the time William’s younger brother Ernest was baptised at St. Mary’s, Bryanston Square, the Orgars were living in Upper Dorset Street (the baptismal record describes William senior as a whitesmith).

In 1886 William and Sarah had a third child, Albert Victor, also born in Upper Dorset Street and baptised at St. Mary’s, but he died shortly after birth. Two years later, another son was born and given the same names.

Section of Weller's 1868 map of London, showing Upper Dorset Street, Bryanston Square and part of Crawford Street, top left

By 1891 the Orgars were living at 177 Stanhope Street, Camden Town. Son William, 16, was working as a telegraph messenger, and Ernest, 12, and Albert, 3, were also still at home.

On 21 October 1900 Ernest Albert Orgar married Amelia Drucilla Wilson, daughter of chimney sweep Thomas Wilson, at Christ Church, St. Pancras. The couple were living with Ernest’s parents in Stanhope Street at the time and Ernest was working as a postman.

About six months later, on 6 April 1901, Ernest’s older brother William, now also working as a postman married Mabel Ford, Bournemouth-born daughter of coachman John Ford and an assistant in a scientific instrument shop, at St. Philip Clerkenwell.

I’ve been unable to find William and Sarah Orgar, or their son Albert, in the census records for 1901. Nor have I discovered a record for William junior and his wife Mabel. Ernest and Amelia, however, were living at 71 James Street, St. Pancras, and Ernest was still working as a postman. They were at the same address two years later when their first child, Ernest Alfred was born: curiously, the baptismal record at St. Mark’s Regents Park gives his mother’s name as Mildred rather than Amelia. A second child, Florence Amelia, was born in 1908.

Victorian postman

William Orgar senior must have died before the 1911 census, which finds his widow Sarah Ann living at 70 Camden Street, Camden Town, with her unmarried son Albert, 23, who, like his older brothers, worked as a postman, together with boarder John Wakeling Bancroft, 49, a fruit salesman. Sarah’s son Ernest and his family were at the same address, but listed as a separate household, consisting of Ernest, his wife Amelia, and their children Ernest, 7, and Florence, 3, as well as Amelia’s sister Emily Florence Wilson, 19, a dressmaker.

At the same date Sarah’s eldest son William and his wife Mabel were living at 73 Boundary Road, Wood Green, with their children May Lilian, 9, Elsie Winifred, 6, Doris Ivy, 3, and Walter Harry Reginald, 2.

Sarah Ann Orgar nee Londors died in the St. Pancras area of London in 1932 at the age of 80.